More Reports On the LOTR Presentation In OKLAHOMA!! Plus Details About LOTR Oscar Party YOU CAN GO TO!!

Quite a few readers went to this event and took the time to write in, so I thought I'd run a few more responses for you to enjoy.

First up, we've got Fat Diesel.

Moriarty,

Fat Diesel here with an update about the visit from New Zealand filmmaker Costa Botes to the University of Oklahoma. Botes seemed to be a rather shy person in front of a large crowd and wonderfully modest. His work-in-progress documentary showed nothing that was absolutely profound, yet it did contain some interesting parts that I will soon get to. This was a definite treat to everyone that attended especially because it won't be released until after ROTK and Botes wonders if what we saw tonight will
even see the light of day. First, a little background information on his project.

Botes first got involved with Jackson's LOTR project in '98 when he proposed that he work as a full time videographer to document the entire production from pre to post. The original intention was to form a full length feature with all of his footage which would be released after all three films. Well, so far he has over 1500 hours of raw footage from the three films to work with. He now would like to see three different documentaries released complimenting each of the three films. In addition, he would like to cut at least an 18 hour version that would be available in archive for anyone to view. He spoke of the various possibilities to release it, but stated that New Line Cinema would have the final say.

Now as for the documentary. The film was a very straightforward presentation of the Behind-The-Scenes life. Without narration, music or any certain order it still kept
every person in the auditorium glued to their seats. There were several humorous segments especially dealing with the hobbits Merry, Pippin and Frodo. We discover that Elijah Wood isn't afraid to drop a few F-bombs here and there, and the we can really see the bonding between the three. There was an awesome scene where Viggo Mortensen was fly fishing in full costume between setups which I interpreted as him being pretty down to earth. When shooting was delayed due to rain there were great images of the scary ass Black Riders all holding up pretty blue umbrellas to shield them from the almighty rain. And of course there were scenes where Christopher Lee was ruling the ADR stage by pretty much telling the suits how he was going to deliver his lines.

So as you can see, nothing profound, but definitely some interesting tidbits to satisfy any LOTR fan. Feel free to post what you want. Thanks

-Fat Diesel

Then we've got Lannister's look:

Hey Moriarty Lannister here with a report from the screening of a work in progress documentary on The Lord of the Rings: FOTR. Packed house in Norman OK for two showings. We arrived for the 8:30 screening and Meachum auditorium was already full and there was a sense of real excitement in the air. We were about to see something that may never be seen in this form again. Costa was introduced and he seemed very personable although he did remark that it was strange his introduction being based on the work of Peter Jackson. Whom he likened to a "storm", "I have known Peter for 17 years and I have gone away and came back because of this draw that he has." He then went on to describe the process of how he pitched the idea to New Line and Peter to do a documentary and what shape it would take. Eventually it was decided to let him cover the entire process from beginning to end (all three films and any reshooting that they deemed necessary and he did say that they had already scheduled 60 days of reshoots for TTT). Peter wanted a loose documentary style that captured the process "warts and all" of making an epic like this. Costa then talked about how much he learned and how he wanted to apply it to his own work as a film maker. His introduction was very exciting and you could feel the excitement just coming through this man who'd lived through an experience like this one. And he did say that it wasn't all pleasant and there were a lot of hard and very difficult times. Then an OU film student was introduced who had been part of a program who'd gone to New Zealand while they were filming to help Costa (LUCKY LUCKY!) She was very nice and was also bristling with excitement. It was also revealed that Norman was the north American premier and that Costa would be tailoring the documentary based on peoples reactions and suggestions. He said that they'd shot hours and hours of footage and then the plan was to get it down to about 35 usable hours and he assured us that every aspect of making these films had been covered for posterity. What New Line would do with that footage was still to be determined and Costa did make it a point to say that New Line owned the footage. HE then spoke about the challenges of finding a story in the 35 hours and how they edited that down to a more comfortable 18 hours. From that he extracted his 72 minute documentary. Now to the documentary. On the whole I'd say it was a good documentary and not a great one and still definitely a work in progress. Costa apologized many times for the poor sound quality and explained that they had mixed it as best they could and that it wasn't finished yet. At times it was difficult to hear what people were saying and with the thick NZ accent it made it even tougher. I was also a little disappointed with the choice of subject matter, it's hard to give you an idea of what I'm talking about except to say that there was a lot of footage of people telling us about their jobs but not much footage of them doing their jobs and on one particular occasion when we did see a model sculptor building the two statues that stood on either side of the great river, he help too long with her as she went around whacking the model with rock to age it. This scene could have accomplished alot more had we been with her a short time and then moved on. But back to the beginning, Costa ultimately decided that he wanted to focus primarily on all the people that are normally overlooked in making of docs and awards ceremonies. The first shot of the doc was a bunch of guys in sweatpants with plastic/wooden swords battling on a field of grass. I felt as did my wife and the rest of the people we were with that this was not a good choice for a first image and that we should have seen a grander more cinematic image and then backpedaled to the sword practice. Costa did say that he wanted criticism. Then the doc dipped right into an argument over lending out radios between two people that was intercept with a lot of other footage of the initial planning of the film. Lots of footage of Peter Jackson sitting around in a stained t-shirt and shorts eating a banana, and talking. Lots of talking about the look of the film. Then we met John Howe and he talked about his involvement. We saw him sitting in the woods and sketching an elvish house or something. Most of the footage we saw of the actors was the best stuff, as it seemed like they were in control. There was a hilarious bit where the Merry. Pippin and Frodo were all sitting around and each time one of them would get up the other two would whisper about them "He's a fucking prick today!" all planned out it was still really really funny to see Elijah wood saying that about the other two and vice versa. In fact alot of the times we saw Elijah he acted like a jerk and then smiled. He was learning his pronunciation in one scene and then got embarrassed and covered the camera. We saw only two bits that were not in the film, one of a Aragorn attacking orcs that wasn't at the end, and then another of a large group of elves moving through the woods (lothlorien?) Some of the other best bits were explanations of the complex interweaving between miniatures and normal size everything from cups, bowls and books to the ring to model sets to Bag End to stunt doubles, all very impressive and detailed and worked out to the nth degree. Shots of Frodo in front of a blue screen reading the lines "Do they, Gandalf?" merged with the earlier footage shot and we saw it put together and it was awesome. A few shots of Ian Mckellan clowning around on set with a small Sam Gamgee double-doll (Use your imaginations!) Then some stuff of Arwen escaping the black riders on an elaborate horse machine that was mounted in the bed of a pick-up truck that was racing through fields with the Nine in pursuit. One jarring shot was a rainstorm that came on
suddenly (and led to the flooding) and all the nine used purple umbrellas to get out of the rain. It was hilarious to see them all clustered around on their horses with the umbrellas. Then we saw Viggo sneak off set and go fly fishing and we got a moment or two with him. Costa commented that he'd never seen actor unify a set like Viggo did and that he was the Jesus of this movie the spirit. Cool. The film ended with Peter saying he'd nener attempt anything like this again and that it was the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life. But that anything cut out would appear on the DVD!!! A rousing applause and then COsta came up for a Q&A. A question about TREEBEARD and the way he would be depicted was neatly deflected: Will Treebeard be CGI or will a man in make-up do it? "Something like that or maybe" Costa said. Answered a couple of other questions that escape me now but nothing really important. All in all it was really cool and I'm glad there was such an enthusiastic turn out. Costa thanked everyone and said that Peter was basing the making of the TTT on audiences reactions to the first film and that characters would have time lessened or added depending on how people reacted to them. SO expect alot of Frodo, Gandalf and Aragorn it seems. A great experience and I hope this report gives you an idea of how cool it was to be so lucky to see this footage like this with Costa fresh off the plane from NZ. Lannister out.

And finally, a quick look from Blues_Explosion:

Wanted to pass along some quick thoughts from the screening of the Lord of the Rings documentary by Costa Boces at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK.

He noted that this is a work on progress, it's not finalized, and some of the footage may never be seen again if they make many changes to the documentary. There were no captions explaining who everyone is in the documentary. They have over 1500 hours of footage from the sets, and are trying to narrow that down to a total of 16 - 18 hours of documentary. His plan (which he mentioned New Line Cinema might disagree with) is to release a documentary for each of the three films, as well as a 'best of' documentary. He would like them to be on DVD so people can skip around to see related sequences (such as creating ideas for hobbiton, then the set creation, then working on size scale problems in hobbiton, etc). And, unfortunately, Costa mentioned that he didn't think any of the documentary would be released until all three films are out.

All the footage shown was from FotR. Costa said something along the lines of "my hide's not worth enough to show footage from the other two movies."

Now for some of the things you get to see....

-- Viggo Mortensen fly fishing between takes.

-- Ringwraiths holding umbrellas.

-- Multiple sized recreations of the same sets and items, for the different scale shots (such as 3 versions of the front door to Bag End, one regular size, one small, and
the one that was outside on the actual Hobbiton set).

-- lots and lots of incredible foam sculptures and miniatures

-- Liv Tyler riding a fake horse on the back of a pickup truck.

-- all the 10000 artificial leaves wired onto trees in Hobbiton

-- Armorers working on chain mail, which they had 10 km of if the chain pieces were laid end-to-end.

-- Some very funny scenes of the main hobbit actors in-between takes.

-- Alan Lee drawing in the forest.

-- miniature replicas of full sets, just for working out camera moves

-- animatics from the larger shots

-- lots of swordfighting practice

-- Peter Jackson complaining that they need a sofa to properly look at shots from the day in their screening room.

-- A girl who's only job is to watch for airplanes and tell the film crew when it's clear (they were near an airport).

-- some very tiny actors dressed just like the main hobbit characters, standing right beside the real actors

-- Sean Astin getting medical treatment when he rams a stick through the bottom of his foot. Elija Wood comforts him by pointing out "man, that is a LOT of blood."

Overall, I was really impressed by what I saw. It gives you a sense of what it took to create this incredible set of films, what a huge, complex undertaking it really was. And it was very entertaining.

I can't wait until it's finished and available.

And that's no bullshit.

Sincerely,

Blues_Explosion

Thanks, everybody. Sounds like an amazing way to spend an evening, and I appreciate you sharing your impressions with us all.

Speaking of incredible evenings, here's an opportunity available to all LOTR fans who can be in Los Angeles on Oscar night this year, courtesy of Michael Regina, known affectionately to many of us as Xoanan of TheOneRing.net:

ONE PARTY TO RULE THEM ALL

THE ONE RING.NET/ Sideshow/WETA OSCAR PARTY – MARCH 24TH, 2002

HOLLYWOOD - The movie industry might need to consider a new awards category
for motion pictures that rewards "best fans." If there were such an award
this year, it would undoubtedly go to the fans of Peter Jackson's Lord of
The Rings: Fellowship of The Ring.

Jackson's epic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's literary classic leads all
films with 13 nominations going into Sunday's Academy Awards and fans of the
film will be celebrating in the best of Hollywood traditions - the awards
party.

TheOneRing.net and Sideshow/WETA Collectibles are hosting an Oscar party the
night of the event at the Hollywood Athletic Club to celebrate the film's
nominations which include Best Picture, a Best Director nod for Jackson and
Best Supporting Actor for Sir Ian McKellen who landed that same mark this
week with the Screen Actor's Guild.

The party gives fans from around the country a place to meet and celebrate
the remarkable critical success of the movie. It will also help to raise
funds for the non-profit fan site, TheOneRing.net (TORn). TORn desperately
needs more bandwidth and a new server to meet the more than 9 million hits
the site averages monthly. Tickets are on sale at TheOneRing.net where an
early sellout is anticipated.

The black tie affair is sponsored by the official Lord Of The Rings fan club
and Decipher as well as Electronic Arts, Houghton Mifflin and Royal Selangor
Pewter. Sponsors are donating official movie merchandise to be raffled off
during commercial breaks during the awards ceremony which will be carried
live at the party. A silent auction will also be held for some donated
items.

Jackson's involvement with the fans is long-standing. He offered charter
members of the official fan club the unprecedented honor of having their
name on the credits of the DVD version of the film, scheduled for release
later in 2002. There are unconfirmed rumors that some involved in the
production of the New Line Cinema film will be stopping by the official fan
party.

The Hollywood Athletic Club

Location: 6525 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, CA (323) 962-6600

The original Hollywood Athletic Club and poolroom is an art-deco landmark.
It was the tallest building in L.A.when it was built in 1924 by the same
architects who built Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Egyptian Theatre.
Founded Charlie Chaplin, Cecil B. DeMille, and Rudolph Valentino, as a
private men's club, it was a hangout for the likes of Errol Flynn and Clark
Gable.The Club was also a celebrity magnet. It was also the site of the very
first Emmy Awards (in 1949). Johnny Weismuller trained in the pool here for
his "Tarzan" films. Actor Cornel Wilde started out here as a fencing
instructor. Powell reportedly brought the corpse of John Barrymore here for
"one last drink." John Wayne tossed billiard balls from the roof at passing
cars below. According to the L.A. Times, blonde bombshell Jean Harlow once
showed up at the club after Errol Flynn stood her up - clad only in a fur
coat. Restored to its Old Hollywood splendor, it is now a Hollywood
landmark.

TheOneRing.net is in no way officially affiliated with New Line Cinema,
Tolkien Enterprises or the Tolkien estate. Copyrights and trademarks for the
books, films, articles and other promotional materials are held by their
respective owners and their use is allowed under the fair use clause of the
Copyright Law. TheOneRing® is a registered service mark with exclusive
right to grant use assigned to the One Ring, Inc.

You were FRIST! And my desperate attempts to get confirmation are not going well. I&#39;ve got someone to ring today, the minute my co-workers stop looking at me. But I&#39;m starting to get an evil creepy feeling. The documentary sounds ace, incidentally. Yay for Lannister et al for coming through. I will never be rude about Oklahoma again, even unwittingly.

Damned Yankees!!! I so wanted to be frist. I also wanted to be able to see these amazing things, doco&#39;s et cetera. That&#39;s what you get for living 16 Hours (flying in a 747) in front of y&#39;all I guess. Cheers.

History geek. There ain&#39;t no such thing as "chain mail". The clinky stuff is just mail, or maille. Chainmail is a word invented by crap historians and made popular by basement-dwelling D & D virgins.

I have only one movie-wish right now (apart from wanting TTT and RotK !NOW!), and that is to see PJ do for the "His Dark Materials" trilogy (Philip Pullman) what he did for LotR. If ever there was a literary classic in the making, Dark Materials is it. Lord of the Rings for the 21st Century? Not quite, perhaps, but plenty of material for PJ to work his magic on. New Line have bought the rights. PJ has demonstrated his ability, and the material certainly is up to the job. Perhaps PJ needs the emotional investment in the project as he had with LotR, but.... oh heck I could go on for hours. I just WISH. Ok?

That right there is absolute genius, and I plan on brushing people off with that myself several times a week. *** Thanks for the follow-up reports, Oklahomans! Nice to finally get a clue as to why the fair city of Norman was blessed with this doco. Appears a student of yers won (earned? applied for and got? wrote a letter and begged for? got her name pulled out of a ten-foot sombrero granting her?) a place in the doco&#39;s production. LUCKY LUCKY indeed! Man, what a gig! *** As for the documentary itself, sounds like a treat, and I don&#39;t doubt Botes has enough material to make a fine piece of work out of it. One bit I&#39;m trying to circle my head around, the length. How long was this early version? A couple hours? He said he wants to do one of these for each movie--a two-hour or so documentary each? So, that&#39;d be 6-9 hours right there. And then there&#39;s also the talk of assembling an EIGHTEEN HOUR (humina humina humina humina humina) documentary covering the entire trilogy of films? I&#39;m guessing comprising the other three film-specific docs, plus more? Just feeling confused as to just what I should be eagerly awaiting, and how much saliva I should be salivating at the thought. As it is, I&#39;ll have to up my water intake. *** Stinks major that we probably won&#39;t be seeing this material until 2004! So what else is going on the November special edition? Trailers, commercials, web shorts? Hrmph! C&#39;mon, New Line, you hardly ever skimp your DVDs........

60 days of reshoots for T2T! 2 months worth! The NZ spies need to get crackin again for us, let us in on what&#39;s being done... I mean NO! Dangit, I&#39;m trying to be story-spoiler-free, somewhat, kinda. But I&#39;m telling you, my optimist&#39;s heart is thinking PJ&#39;s reworking the script to realign it with the book... Get the elves outta HD, f&#39;rinstance... sumthin like that... Cause it&#39;s gotta be rewrites, and recent decisions--they certainly didn&#39;t have 2 months of footage left to shoot when they wrapped January 2001. And if it&#39;s 2 months&#39; worth, I&#39;m think fairly complex shots to assemble, not just dialogue--like, battle, mebbe... Well, there&#39;s going to be much more location work on screen than studio this film (how often is anyone indoors--Golden Hall? That&#39;s all I can think of. Maybe some of the Fangorn material...) so statistically most reshoots&#39;ll be on location, too. That could be a reason behind the 2-months needed, it includes the set-ups and travel times, etc. Also, I think T2T was going to have the most changes made to it in adaptation. I don&#39;t mean by straight excision, like Bombadil and SOTS, but actual change to the narrative. Meaning, the Rohan refugees, Arwen/elves at HD, etc. Nothing that had to be carried over into ROTK necessarily, send everybody home after Isengard. But I think in their original imagining of the adaptation, T2T had the most alterations. NOW though, (I&#39;m a guessin and a hopin) PJ wants to mirror the book as much as possible, and sees that it&#39;s wanted by the fans AND possible, and can still make for a compelling movie. And with the almost grotesque financial success of FOTR he certainly has the means... Nine months and three days to go! (Ooosh, it&#39;s waaaay too early for a countdown >gulp<) *** Great news for Australia! Hopefully that&#39;ll mean good news for Alice, Goldberry, and NZ too! 15 days to go! (Oh no, not again...)

I have a brilliant idea for a commercial enterprise, inspired by recent news from France. Deep freezing LOTR fans to shorten the wait! Stick &#39;em in the cryogenic booth for 9 months of beddy-byes, to wake up frist in the queue for Two Towers. Special offer if you book for ROTK. Choose from Ripley-style clean white plastic or Anton Arcane Gigeresque. 9 blissful, troll-free, spoiler-free months, with a complimentary FOTR DVD - extended version, of course. Proprietors accept no liability for thaw-related accidents. All major credit cards accepted. Any takers?

Did he turn him into anything unnatural or just definistrate him by his ears. For something completely different; If anyone has the faintest whiff of a rumour on how they&#39;re going to procure ents please add it to the talkback. Especially how they will bring the appeearance of their eyes into accord with Pippin&#39;s description of them. Jackson did an outstanding job with the Balrog but it did&#39;nt require much character development - it was played by a tennis ball for crying out loud. Treebeard is much too much of a dynamic character to be entirely CGI in my humble opinion. I hopr Jackson includes the marching song of the ents. You know the one "We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door." (quote may be inaccurate)It&#39;s not the best piece of poetry in the LOTR but it wouldn&#39;t have to take up that much time, for me it epitomizes the excitement of that scene, and it would be an awesome spectacle to see on the big screen. And furthermore, just for my everlasting delight they&#39;d better include the Oliphaunt if they&#39;re going to cut Shelob out. I&#39;m probably going to regret asking this but Selfkiller, have you even read the books or is your phillipic diatribe based solely on having seen the movie?

TORN&#39;s got a whole lotta worldwide reports today about the T2T preview reel. Some good, some not so good, unfortunately. But hell, if Belgium and Thailand are getting it there ain&#39;t no way England&#39;ll get jobbed. Right? And besides, looks like it&#39;s all theater-manager&#39;s hearsay at this point anyway. Maybe some chains/countries/managers are more in the loop (or more attentive) than others. But I think you can start getting your hopes up, Alice &#39;n Miss Frist. Looks like Germany&#39;s screwed, but what the hey, that&#39;s Metaphordor right? ;~) *** My bad, started typing and forgot your handle, sorry, but the fellow just above asking about Treebeard: Don&#39;t know what&#39;s included at all in his scenes, other than we will get to see the sack of Isengard. Man I hope we get the marching song, too! One of my favorite parts of the BBC program. "To Isengard, we coooome! To DOOOOOM, we cooome! To DOOOoooomm..." >cough< Oy, me lungs ain&#39;t what they used to be. As for how Treebeard&#39;ll be portrayed, a few things have leaked out. Apparently he&#39;ll be a combination of CG and practical effects/animatronics; there&#39;ve been set reports of the 2 hobbit actors riding on his "shoulders" etc. Boyd described him as maybe the biggest animatronic in a film, huge. But there&#39;ll definitely be scenes of entirely CG Treebeard. I hope the two jibe together! As for an Oliphaunt, well, we know there&#39;ll at least be a dead one at some point in the movies. :) (I don&#39;t have the link handy but it&#39;s a gigantic prop--definitely the largest single prop ever constructed for a feature film.) But no idea if that&#39;s in Pelennor or from Faramir&#39;s raid. My gut says we won&#39;t get an oliphaunt until ROTK. But man, in T2T, that&#39;d be great...

;) Yeah, yer right I suppose. I was having dreamy visions of reshooting all of HD, entirely elf-free... (Originally took 10 weeks of nights, right?) I was also thinking that the plot changes that we&#39;d heard they were doing for T2T could be wrapped up (somehow, I dunno) with minimal change to a book-centric ROTK. Again, just my own wistful speculation, sigh. And that with the ridiculous sums of money pouring in from FOTR alone, New Line was feeling indulgent. And what the hell? Ya got all 2003 to do ROTK reshoots, with Two Towers money! :) But, nope, you&#39;re more than likely correct, and PJ ain&#39;t frivolous. Still, that IS a lot of reshoots, no? I&#39;m *still* optimistic!

Well, several observations on Trailer Panic, now I&#39;ve had a chance to sit down with a nice cup of tea (but no biscuit, cos I ran out, so I&#39;m still quite hyper). For a start, the movie will definitely be playing somewhere in my hometown (in fact a couple of places) in two weeks time. Harry Potter is still playing, for crying out loud. We&#39;ve got a 30 screener down the road. Now, if it&#39;s playing anyway, you may as well capitalize with the new reel. That said, I&#39;ve no idea how much ordering new reels is, who pays for it (distributor, cinema, studio... whoever) the mechanics are a mystery to me. But, it does occur to me that the TORN British guy was talking about the Odeon chain, and I&#39;ve never seen an Odeon with more than seven screens, and they are going to be taken up with way more current movies. I think the one on Leicester Square only has about 5. However, places like Warner Villages have anything up to 30 screens per multiplex, and then you&#39;ve got your UGC and your Showcase, so I will be cautiously optimistic. I tried phoning UGC today, guy at the HO wasn&#39;t at his desk, figures. Though I&#39;m finding it very strange that two weeks before the event people don&#39;t know anything about it. And no, I don&#39;t know how this will effect Goldberry - I don&#39;t have an Omniplex near me and know nothing about them. One thing I DO know, however, is that if I don&#39;t see this footage 10 feet high with digital sound, and am forced to download it off some crappy site where the RealPlayer sticks every 3 seconds, then, New Line, I shall be forced to run rampant through your offices with a high performance rifle. For everybody&#39;s patience in getting to the end of my rant, I thusly reward you all with this link, inspired by a reference to basement dwelling virgins: http://www.brunching.com/images/geekchartbig.gif

Haha, yes, I know the chart of which you speak, and I&#39;m not ashamed to admit that I fit in at several points, none of which have anything to do with plushies. If you get a result from Warner let me know, that&#39;s my best hope.

I just read an interesting little article in the LA Times about Ralph Bakshi and his version of Lord of the Rings. It was mentioned that a good number of the Peter Jackson crew studied his version while putting together theirs. Is this true? Did they seem to borrow any images from the old rotoscope experiment? Did you like the
Bakshi version? I did not, saw it in the theatre when it first came out, and was quite disappointed. Talk about an abrupt ending! Gads. During the 70&#39;s a better trippy little animated film was called &#39;Wizards&#39;.
Of course, I rented it a couple of years ago, and it did not age well. Guess I was not quite as discriminating in my movie preference when I was a grade schooler, but I knew enough to know that the Bakshi LOTR was not good.
Look forward to the responses.
PS - The first movie I ever saw in the movie theatre was Monty Python and the Holy Grail in when it was first released, 1975 or so I think. May explain quite a bit about me.

As much as I&#39;d like to see the entire trilogy scene for scene on screen I have the sneaking suspicion that there will be no huorns. Cool as they would be. They just don&#39;t have a neccesity that a feature film would need. sigh......
If they sacked Bombadil and the Barrow-wight then no one&#39;s safe. Not Beregond or Elfhelm or Shadowfax or Ioreth or Gorbag or Quickbeam. None of them. I delighted in FOTR but I missed the little characters and scenes that helped show that this story was taking place in a world larger than all of them. If Peter Jackson is reading this here&#39;s my list of stuff I demand be left in (aside from the aforementioned ent march.) 1. the Dead Marshes - how could that not be cool. 2. Smeagol demanding that Sam eat raw rabbit- which justs cracks me up. 3. Pippin looking into the palantir. 4. Helm&#39;s horn echoing forever in the deep. 5. Merry and Pippin smoking pipes amid the ruin of Isengard. 6. I can&#39;t think of a six. I know that this list should go to at least 30. I&#39;m too tired to think. Based on FOTR&#39;s performance this movie will make money even if it&#39;s six hours long. Don&#39;t cut out all those moist little tidbits that I love. Back me up people! Make your voices heard. Give me herbs and stewed rabbit or give me death!

I think Jazzuk&#39;s got the right idea for His Dark Materials Trilogy. I could go on for hours about how amazing this series is... but I&#39;ll save you all from listening to me ramble. The point is, as an aspiring filmaker (who isn&#39;t tho, right) my dream since I finished The Golden Compass, was to bring the book to the big screen... but if I can&#39;t do it, there&#39;s only ONE PERSON I trust it with, and that&#39;s PJ!!!

My hiatus from the TB boards is ended - been having computer problems, especially in relation to AICN - it likes to make things crash... looks like I&#39;ve just missed out on a bunch of SW trolling for the most part. I like to sneak in on the civil talkbacks though. First, DAMN. Damnity damn damn - I&#39;ll be in LA the week AFTER the Oscars. I would LOVE to go to the LA party. It would be fun to cheer on our horse in the Oscar race with a bunch of friendly strangers. +++ solikat, been having trouble getting on TORn too. Gollum keeps saying "my precioussss..." (my error event sound) +++ Wet Moose - have read that Dead Marshes, Smeagol&#39;s rabbit stuff and Pippin and Palantir are DEFINATLY in - course editing still has to take place, but it sounds like they&#39;ll make it past the cutting room floor. Haven&#39;t heard anything about the Helms horn or Merry & Pippin, though I think M&P casually smoking at Isengard after all the destruction would be way cool, cinematically. Can&#39;t wait to see all our friends re-united - Gandalf&#39;s return, will be friggin awesom... Wow - I&#39;m rambling. Sorry, been home ill all day with a fever and such. Got to take some more meds.

ha, don&#39;t even get me started! His LOTR is the movie I LOVE to hate. It holds an odd place in my heart. Don&#39;t get me wrong, it has it&#39;s good points. But whoa howdy, the bad stuff is there in abundace. I heard PJ&Co viewed it - I think I even read at one point that when PJ saw the movie in the 70s, it inspired him to read the books, so he became a Tolkien fan, blah blah, fast-forward, PJ becomes director of LOTR. So Bakshi may have fulfilled his destiny in bring about a good LOTR movie after all. If you watch the Black Rider scene from the two versions, they are quite similiar in composition (PJ&#39;s works better for me though because the rider isn&#39;t a limping zombie-like creature) Over the past little while there&#39;s been a couple of Bakshi interviews that have come out. He&#39;s sounds like a really imbittered little bastard, especially over PJ&#39;s success.

In the afterglow of LOTR orgasm, I think we can afford to be magnanimous to Bakshi&#39;s flawed but hilarious, sometimes inspired effort. Did you know Legolas was played by Threepio? Or that Gimli was a Skeksis in another life? Or that Elrond was Quatermass??? (Fucking Quatermass Half-Elven, how cool is that?) PJ will have to work very hard to top Bakshi&#39;s gollum, as well. Tolkien himself mmay have hated those orcs, but I liked them. In part I can understand Bakshi&#39;s attitude, having read the whole of that recent interview. Apparently he was stitched up by Rankin-Bass over the second half. Also, I&#39;ve found a great new game: Spot the AICN regular writing a review on IMDB. I think I&#39;ve already spotted morGoth, PB, and DrCool.

...ain&#39;t what it used to be. Although I enjoy the element of surprise. The random nature of the talkbacks has a certain Dadaist charm, has it not? *** Thanks, AliceInWonderland, you are a good soul.

In the LA Times article he mentions that he has not seen LOTR:FOTR. I simply cannot imagine someone so deep into Lord of the Rings that you would not go to see the movie, if for no other reason then to satisfy your curiosity. From the article it sounds like he has a core group of fans to have managed to dissuade him from seeing the film. His loss.

Hokay, Britishers and other interested parties... I talked to UGC&#39;s Head Office (I&#39;m such
a sad fangirl loser, I know, I know...) and they say they are
playing the new footage wherever the film is still playing. Votes remain to come in from
Warner and Showcase. So I&#39;m a bit cheered, because if Warner&#39;s falls in as well, my ass is
definitely covered. Next cause for massive anxiety is this... will it be finished in time?
And then, more horrifyingly and thrillingly... will it be any good?

That chart, Alice, is perfect. (I counted 7 applicable blocks....) Cheers to the researchers who assembled it! But it lost me at the end there. "Furries"? A British thing? People into anthropomorphing, or just stuffed animals? What are Furries when they&#39;re not erotic? I honestly have no sense of it as a movement/genre/hobby, especially one big enough for the entire Geek Community to scoff at, which, I suppose, is a GOOD thing... *** Good news for ya on the trailer! 2 weeks to go...

In a spy report many many moons ago, there was a description of activity at the Helms Deep set (or nearabouts), and direction being given to the Orc hordes. There was a gigantic, loooong blue screen stretched out behind them, and the Orcs were being instructed to first look amazed and frightened at "a forest that has sprung up from nowhere" (or something like that) and then later to run fearfully into it. So, it looks like PJ&#39;s not going to cut corners as far as the resolution of Helms Deep >cough-Ralphie-cough<! And speaking of Monsewer Bakshi. Yep, I think he&#39;s finally cracked his nut. I&#39;ve heard him huff in at least three interviews versions of "How DARE they not consult me!" and "I just don&#39;t get it--I still have the rights! [um, no. --Ed.]" It&#39;s true PJ read the book after seeing the movie, and there are one or two design and shot choices that look very similar, but a lot of those can be traced back even further to Alan Lee illustrations. I&#39;m thinking in particular of the Rider peering over the tree root, which predates Bakshi&#39;s film. Poor ol&#39; Ralph Bakshi. Up til recently I had this desire to see him do an animated "Bored of the Rings" as a wonderfully mad Up Yers! Especially if he was word-for-word faithful, dated references and all, and incorporated his original character designs as much as possible. It would have been such an absurd affair, just delicious. I&#39;d pull for the guy, cheer him on for doing it. ...But then I heard PJ say he&#39;d never read BOTR, that he&#39;s heard of it but he&#39;s terrified to touch it (yet), for fear it&#39;ll put some bad bad ideas into his head before he&#39;s finished with LOTR. And so NOW I&#39;m thnking... after PJ does his small-scale NZ-centric film after LOTR, and maybe his WWI zombie epic Harry teased about... he directs his first fully animated feature, "Bored of the Rings." Now THAT could be perfectly hilarious. Man, PJ, this is what you get. Make great movies out of a great book and everyone wants you to do their pet project. :~)

I swear I&#39;ve never written an IMDB review, for ANY movie. But I&#39;d love to read my imposter! Sort of like hearing your own voice on a tape recorder: "Don&#39;t really sound like that, do I?" Hell, I&#39;m so vain I probably think this post is about me. Don&#39;t I? *** By the way, you and SpacePervert. Any relation? ;)

it&#39;s actually near the top - erik myers - writes very much in your style, fast, full of acerbic wit and frequent asides. Sorry to both of you, but there&#39;s a definite similarity. *** Anyway you noticed, I had a haircut. Actually I dropped the "rt" because Perve sounds less like child-molesting sicko and more like nude chocolate-sauce wrestling enthusiast. Or indeed, pervy hobbit-fancier (oh Rosie, you buxom vertically-challenged delight, the foot-massage that awaits you...)

Sent that gif to a number of friends, and after a flurry of nobody admitting how far down the chart the progress, a couple replied explaining the Furry modus operandi. (They "claim" to have seen something on MTV about it....) Holy Matching Chip &#39;n&#39; Dale Suits, Batman. Gah! (And sorry for the unintentional slur, suggesting it&#39;s "a British thing".) But I gotta ask: what the hell are the non-erotic Furries? &#39;Cause if dressing up in cartoon animal costumes ain&#39;t about sex, in a lot of ways that&#39;s even scarier...

Yeah, too quiet. This may be the single quietest LOTR-only TB I&#39;ve ever seen at AICN. Not ONE single troll popped up, ever, the past couple days. Unless they were deleted afore I saw em, but doesn&#39;t look so. And the usual jibber-jabber among the good folk is fairly slow, too. So let&#39;s get this party started! [hold on, let me get into character]

I think I prefer the Tolkien word better, Gaffer. Much more dignified for those of us who are actually starting to move beyond Dante&#39;s &#39;mid-way through life&#39;s journey&#39; age. Now there is a trilogy that I would like to see filmed, Dante&#39;s Divine Comedy. That would be a hoot. Pretty profound material, and perhaps someone could try to take it seriously and do a good job of it.
As for what I would like to see in the Two Towers; I guess as long as the Ents are portrayed well I will be happy. Treebeard needs to be done well, as much so as Gollum. If those two are done well, then I will be quite content, regardless of what Peter Jackson does with the storyline.

All right then, in what arena shall we scrap? The upcoming movie(s)? The present movie? The Oscars, or other awards? The upcoming DVDs? The book itself, or other Tolkien material, or Tolkien himself, perhaps? (All of the preceding suck, of course, but I&#39;ll happily explain just why they suck.) Or shall we just devolve into colorful and/or redundant insult swapping? Or a little of all of the above? Let me know where ya wanna go. Load me up for the weekend, and (barring any new LOTR boards) I&#39;ll give you pasty-faced mythopoecians a good what-for on Monday. Til then, hugs, you sad and lonely idiots.

Go screw, green stuff. Just ignore that asshole, everyone. *** hildebrand, can&#39;t agree more. Gollum & Treebeard are crucial beyond measure. Still, no matter how gewnius and photorealistic, there&#39;s going to be huge slams and derisive "talking tree" comments. And not just from the juveniles, but from the less imaginative mainstream press reviewers, too. A whoooole lotta dumb talking-tree comments, and many along the lines of "At least AOTC didn&#39;t have gay talking trees! It&#39;s like Wizard of Oz! And you say SW is kid stuf??!?!?" et cetera. Just be ready for it.

Well, I must admit, when the gif went round work I had real problems locating anyone who knew what a furry is - much less an "erotic furry", which, I&#39;m sorry, must be one of the funniest phrases in human language. Just try saying it out loud. Or maybe its cos I&#39;m stoned. But huorns - I&#39;m betting that they will be kind of like Old Man Willow. I just see them as trees capable of a kind of creepy, rustling locomotion. I don&#39;t remember them being described any other way, at least. And as for the Elves, it&#39;s an interesting question. I don&#39;t recall any kind of apocalypse myth in "The Silmarillion" or elsewhere (other than Sauron getting hold of the Ring, one could argue) but I am prepared to cede the point to other Tolkien scholars.

Oh, I can also imagine the storm in the trollers ranks when they see the Ents. Many humourless Wizard of Oz jokes will be poured on the heads of anyone who likes the movie. My hope is that they don&#39;t try to get to clever for their own good when they put the Ents together. They must know the inherent strangness of talking trees, and that means that hopefully they will go for the ancient and wise type of image. As for the Huorons (sp?), they may actually be a bit easier as they are never described individually (at least to great detail), and thus they can be represented by a feel of creeping unease and dread. If they are in, expect a great deal of sound and shadow.

A brief history of the name. I am working on my Ph.D in history at Chicago, my dissertation topic will be on certain aspects of the 11th century reform movements. The chief character for my studies is a gent by name of Pope Gregory VII, his name prior to elevation as pope was Hildebrand. Thus the name is quite near and dear to me. I first read Lord of the Rings when I was in fifth grade, which was a year prior to the bicentennial.

I&#39;m at home on my s-l-o-w connection, so I&#39;m not gonna check the link, but you can find IMDB user comments by looking up the film, then left nav panel for "User comments". There are 3000 opinions on PJ&#39;s FOTR, guess it struck a chord.

Now that I&#39;ve seen LOTR more times than I&#39;ve bothered to count I&#39;ve found myself thinking about a particular detail, I think an intentionally symbolic detail of PJ&#39;s, that is implied in his film. If anyone recalls in the bridge sequence between Arwen and Aragorn when Arwen expresses her intentions to give up her mortality for the sake of Aragorn she gives him his neclace with a stone pendant (was it called the elfstar?). Aragorn attempts to reject it telling her she cannot give this to him. She insists and with the camera focusing on their hands she forces Aragorns hand around the pendant in a very dramatic way.
Cut to the end of the film. Frodo is offerring Aragorn the ring. There is a moment of suspense while Aragorn appears to be hearing the rings call. And then in the same manner as Arwen, Aragorns hand is filmed closing Frodos hand around the ring. Indicating that it is Frodo&#39;s to bear.
Clearly PJ is suggesting that there is an analogous relationship between Frodo and Aragorn and what they are bearing. But how so?

It twas me MorGy wishing for the &#39;good ole&#39; days of Tolkein discussions, but anyway. On that topic you raised, yhe Elves as I understood such things were immortal as long as &#39;Ea&#39; existed. I remember reading somewhere that "Luthien" alone of the Eldar is the only one who has passed beyond the bounds of Ea, or something along those lines. I guess no-one will be really able to know until Illuvatar reveals all, and I have the funny feeling that ain&#39;t gonna be happening anytime soon!!! I did read somewhere thought about the final battle for Ea involving your namesake vs Tulkas, Turin Turambar and Earendil (I think.) It was supposed to be after this climatic battle that Eru would reveal all his plans. I just wondered what the price of ringside seats for that fight would be? It would certainly put Tyson to shame that&#39;s for sure... Cheers.

The reason there have not been many thoughtful discussions lately is because Dufusyte, the great thought provoker, has been largely silent. This is a good thing, since Dufusyte only pipes up when things are off course. Film One was largely on course, and it sounds like Films 2 & 3 will be as well, thus no need for major rants anymore. ******* However, I will say that there was something missing in Film One. I mean, I "only" saw it twice (and plan to see it once more for the TTT epilogue). I did not fall in love with the film like I do with some films. What ingredient was it missing? I will have to repeat what I first said after viewing it, namely, you don&#39;t bond with any of the characters. It&#39;s a vague thing to say, but it still strikes me as that way. There&#39;s Bilbo the crack fiend, addicted to his ring (I don&#39;t relate to that); there&#39;s Frodo the "I must undertake earth shattering quest even though I apparenty have no real stake in this matter, and am ill suited to it" (which seems so unlikely that it is hard for anybody to relate to such a character); there&#39;s Gandalf "saving the universe is my business as usual" (ok, I guess, but I don&#39;t identify with that sort of a character); there&#39;s Sam "lets pretend I&#39;m not Frodo&#39;s servant" (his character&#39;s identity is thoroughly muddled, so you cannot identify with him since you don&#39;t really know what he is); there&#39;s Boromir "Defender of Gondor" (who really has the most sympathetic character we might root for, were it not for the fact that he is characterized as a villain); there&#39;s Aragorn "I must avenge my father" (makes sense - the only well defined character in the film); then for the ladies we have Galadriel "The Elf Witch from Planet X" (one of the most beloved characters in the book, but a quasi-villain in the film); and there&#39;s Arwen "Love interest from out of the Blue" (a nice enough character, but we need to know more about her - and we especially need to understand, in big letters, that she sacrifices immortality for love, and we need to know *why* she loves Aragorn so much to do this). The other characters are too minor to matter (random Hobbits #3 & #4, random Elf #2, and Token Dwarf #1). ******* In every case, what needed to be done was to explain a little more of the *why* the characters are who they are. If there is a *why*, then the audience has a chance to bond with them. There was a Why Deficiency in the film. That was the missing ingredient. (script writer alert!) ******* Another gripe is that PJ&#39;s background of making horror films has colored lotr too much as a horror film. The warmth is missing, and the "respites" in the journey, like at Bree and Lothlorien, are portrayed not as respites, but as additional horrors. Thus the audience never gets a rest, but rather the constant tension become monotonous. The journey needed some safe havens along the way, such as with Tom, at the jovial Bree, and with the Protectress Galadriel. In the book, the travelers feel safe from time to time (see above), but in the film they never feel safe. I suspect PJ does not feel comfortable portraying people who feel comfortable. PJ needs to keep his characters in the constant atmosphere of a horror flick, because he feels comfortable filming horror. There ya go. ******* All in all Film One was nicely done, and I am confident the other two will be as well. As for the missing ingredient, this is caused by the personalities of the director and script writers, and the only way to counter-act the deficiencies would be to bring a bit of new blood on board (like an additional script writer) but I do not see that happening. Considering the personalities of those who are creating the films, I suspect what we will see in the next two are what we saw in the first one, namely, a visually breath-taking display of an epic journey by a bunch of characters in constant danger we really don&#39;t care about.

Those She-orcs are nasty alright, but hey, &#39;when in Rome...&#39; I have experienced far too much Green beer today to be able to discuss convincingly but here goes. MorGy, I think you&#39;re partially correct about the immortality of the elves. I think your example though wasn&#39;t the best choice. (I&#39;m feeling belligerent after a large number of green pints!) Miriel &#39;Serinde,&#39; otherwise known as the &#39;fastest hands in the West.&#39; (A little Tolkien joke there, how&#39;s that for showing off?) Went to Lorien after giving birth to Feanor, and laid down to rest. This was due to her passing on to Feanor, &#39;life that would have nourished many,&#39; and she was just plain worn out... She didn&#39;t die, in the usual sense of the word though. She &#39;merely&#39; travelled to the halls of Mandos. She seems to me to have been similar to Feanor in the respect that she didn&#39;t actually die, but she also never returned from Mandos&#39;s halls, to the land of the living, according to the stories Tolkien wrote. I agree about the Ainur and the eternal thing. They existed prior to Arda and given the lack of evidence to the contrary I&#39;d say it&#39;d be safe to assume they existed after Arda ended, whatever happens then? Dufusytell, I agree somewhat about the movie. A friend of mine who knows nothing about LOTR et cetera, said to me at the end of the movie, "it can&#39;t end there!" "Was the Green (notice the theme here?) chick good or evil?" These were his exact words. He couldn&#39;t tell from the movie whether Galadriel was good or evil. I don&#39;t understand why PJ portrayed her this way. (Or why he used CGI to portray her &#39;freak out&#39; scene, but that&#39;s a different topic completely...) I also don&#39;t know why Sam wasn&#39;t present at the mirror in the movie. This wouldn&#39;t have added to the length of the film and appears to be a conscious decision on PJ&#39;s part, rather than an editorial matter. But oh well, it&#39;ll probably be the best FOTR movie I&#39;ll ever see and that&#39;ll have to do. I DO hope he adds alot of the bits and pieces real fans have been whingeing about though, he keeps on saying it&#39;s for the fans. Lets see him make good. I told you I was belligerent!!! Cheers.

...An&#39; then here comes master Mofo bandying it about with great abandon! Err um,... he was referring to three of his posts... but, er, lets just examine; do those three posts meet the literary requirements to form a trilogy? Do they deal with same or related characters and settings? Does each post &#39;resolve&#39; in and of it self? Or are they, as I suspect, and as is Master Miami&#39;s wont, rather, cliffhangers, telling one contiguous, (albeit terribly convoluted and confusing story, hmmm where have I heard something described in those terms before?) Any fookin way, let&#39;s get on with the business at hand: HARUM! #COUGH# *SNIIIFF*! It ain&#39;t a #*(&)@!^% TRLOGY YE&#39; NEOLITHIC DIPSHIT ASSWIPE KNUCKLEHEADS!!! There, Quarterly "It ain&#39;t a fuckin&#39; trilogy" rant out of the way. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Any vonny grazny starwars lotr bashing cry babies about? Let&#39;s just go an&#39; take a look... oh BTW when is the T2T footage supposed to be in theaters attached to FOTR prints? Has anyone seen it? Namarie Mellyn an&#39; Trubba Not. SM{;-0

Some thoughts about your comments, actually just two. One, I believe that we are meant to identify with Frodo, because most of us are in his position, living our lives out of the spotlight, hoping for some peace and happiness, and hoping that nothing too &#39;exciting&#39; happens to us. We don&#39;t want to have to be the one to save the world, and most of us, if we are honest, simply do not think that we could do it if we had to. That said, if presented with the situation we would try our best and make the choices that we thought were correct. Frodo is not his Uncle, the wandering type always looking beyond the next hill, trying to see what awaits him. Frodo wants has some vague rumblings about what is out there, but by and large is pretty content to have things the way they are. In the movie the first image of Frodo is what we are meant to see as a good example of his choice in life, sitting in an idyllic place reading a good book. This image speaks to those of us who wish for the simple pleasures of home and hearth. Thus, all along the way he makes the decision simply to keep going, it is also why Frodo&#39;s character is tragic in the end, because the one who wanted the simple life is the one who does not get even that. His loss is the loss of his dream for a quiet life. All of the others gain a good deal, Sam gains stature and fortitude, Merry and Pippin, who are clearly the adventuring types, become heroes in many places, Gandalf and Aragorn fulfill their destiny, Boromir dies only after he redeems himself (what better act for a warrior), and Legolas and Gimli reawaken the bond between elves and dwarves. All of the other fulfill grand destinies, Frodo, who sacrificed the most though he did not want to, loses what he wanted in the first place. Only by leaving does he claim a sense of peace. In that, I think we can see that most of us are closer to Frodo then to any of the others, we can understand his motives, and they are closer to our basic daily motives.
Well, that&#39;s a bit long winded, but a thought about the issue I have had nonetheless.
My second point is that Bree was hardly (in the book) a time of respite in the hobbit&#39;s travels. The foolishness of the ring making its presence known and the arrival of the Ringwraiths simply restarts the flight to Rivendell that began in the Shire. It is really only Tom Bombadil that is somewhat of an idyll, but even that is broken up with the barrow wights. It may simply be that Tolkien took a great many pages to describe everything, but I do not think that the book tarries as much as some think it does.

I am sorry to say that I do agree with Dufusyte and Conan regarding Galadriel and Lorien. This was the one scene I was most looking forward to and was terribly disappointed in. I wanted to experience the wonder, grace, and mystery of Lorien and to be awed by the beauty and wisdom of Galadriel. Instead, I felt like I had entered the Little Shop of Horrors hosted by Pennywise the Clown. The infamous "transformation incident" was enacted with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer and I am still reeling from the blow. While I understand that they were trying to demonstrate what the power of the Ring would do to Galadriel, it just wasn&#39;t to my taste. Rivendell, by contrast, exceeded my wildest dreams. A gorgeous refuge of healing and peace. PJ & Co. really nailed that one for me. *** Miami - you are most welcome but remember to keep it secret and to keep it safe. *** Enough of my ramblings as I must return to the party at the Club. Ingold has abandoned all reason and is offering complimentary Club services to all and sundry. Really, sir, this must stop! And morGoth is searching high and low for those unflattering hot pants that his sootyness likes to prance around in (always puts an abrupt end to the festivities). Anyways, enjoy the party and remember not to inquire too deeply as to how the green beer became green.

Unlike a lot of the posters here I didn&#39;t find PJ&#39;s portrayal of Galadriel problematic in principle . If I had a difficulty it was with his execution. If you look at her portrayal in the context of the introductory sequence which Galadriel narrates and inwhich she is portrayed centrally as one of the original elven ringbearers then it becomes clear that PJ is suggesting that Galadriel is something like the physical representation of the entire history of the rings in Middle Earth. It would seem clear then that she would have qualities reflecting both the beneficient and potentially catastrophic implications of that history. And so when Galadriel says that the quest is balanced precariously on the edge of a knife, she could just as likely be referring to her own condition with respect to the temptation of the ring. Her warning to Frodo then is all the more relevant because when Galadriel is revealed before Frodo fighting the temptation it makes it clearer than ever before that this is something that cannot be within reach of anyone even those Frodo thought once trustworthy and most importantly anyone with the ability to wield it with power. This of course sets up his eventual decision to leave the Fellowship. Some might consider PJ&#39;s portrayal of Galadriel a departure from the book.If this is the case for you I would suggest you read the temptation sequence in the books and you&#39;ll be surprised how identical the dialogue is. But secondly I would suggest you read Tolkien&#39;s essay on Fairytales. He was not a fan of the Disneyification of the Fairy. He argues infact that the Fairy story in its original form was diffused with much shadow, mystery and danger. PJ has chosen to portray Galadriel as a resident of THAT class of fairy tale NOT Disney, Inc&#39;s. For those who find this dissapointing please visit the local Block Buster and you will find your fill of Nice and Harmless Blue Fairy&#39;s in the animated features section of the childrens section.

For Tolkien, Elves are like unto Man before the Fall. As you recall, Man, in the garden of Eden, was immortal. It was only after eating of the forbidden fruit that man became subject to death (look it up, if you are not familiar with it). If we ask, what would the life of Man have been like, had he not fallen, Tolkien provides us a rough answer in the Elves. Moreover, fallen man lost much of the light of his intellect, and lost many other gifts of grace. Elves represent, to a large extent, Man, Unfallen, still possessing the full gifts of original human nature, as God originally intended it. I believe it is pretty fair to say (and perhaps obvious to say), that Tolkien&#39;s model for the Elves is Man before the Fall. ******* As for Galadriel&#39;s transformation, I thought that part was ok, although it is hard to hear her lines, which are very important. They really should have made sure her lines were fully intelligible, since they are great lines.

Also, the original sin in the Genesis story is that of pride. Which continues to underscore the story because the ringwraiths fell under the evil of Sauron because they thought that they could master the rings that they were given. They fell to the same temptation to be &#39;like God&#39; as Adam and Eve.

Ok, this talkback seems to have moved into territory where folks are in the mood to actually discuss, and it has been interesting to read. A welcome change from the usual talkback that devolves into bickering, name-calling and epithet launching. What I would like to know is what is with the reaction from Ebert and Roeper to FOTR? Are they about the only critics in the country who really did not like this film? I read Ebert&#39;s review, and it was quite the grudging three stars, and I think I understand his position to be that it was not the pastoral poetry read that he remembered from when he first read the book. Ok, I think that can be understood. (Although giving Harry Potter four stars and calling it an instant classic makes me question his ability as of late.) What I don&#39;t get is Roeper&#39;s attitude. Can anyone enlighten me about his take on the film?

Have to agree with those disliking the elves=unfallen man idea. Maybe it works for the Cuivienen elves (though I see little value in the comparison), but the elves who left Valinor had undergone their own "fall", of a different nature. Elves are elves, men are men, I think. ______ Re the name "Hildebrand" I thought it was going to be a reference to the Brothers Hildebrandt, the famous Tolkien illustrators. So there&#39;s a Tolkien link, should you need one morGoth ;-). ________ re Galadriel, asking if she is supposed to be good or evil in the film is perhaps the wrong approach. We see elves as "good" by our human value system, because they are beautiful, and (generally) fight against evil etc. But as I just said, elves are essentially an alien race. Perhaps a better question would be are elves "perilous", to use Sam&#39;s word. Entering Lorien undoubtably is a perilous thing for mortals to attempt, and that is an aspect clearly shown in the movie. I don&#39;t particularly like how it was achieved, but I can&#39;t say it&#39;s a reading that&#39;s inconsistent with the text. The representation of Lorien itself was quite gloomy. I wonder if there was a conscious ecision to contrast the sunny Rivendell with the moonlit Lorien? (Light of Laurelin and Telperion) I doubt it actually, and I hope not. I&#39;m looking forward to some daylight Lorien scenes on the DVD. There is a beautiful Tolkien drawing of the sun shining through the trees in Lorien that I hope the concept-artists took into account. http://217.23.146.97/texts/eng/pbjrrt/contents.html (picture #25).

Regarding the "transformation" scene in the LOTR film. I have a problem with the manner in which it was shown, not the scene itself. I am well aware that the scene was almost exactly lifted from the book, however I cannot recall reading any version of LOTR which states that Galadriel almost triples in height, turns green (hang on what day was this film released? Oh never mind...) and develops a speech impediment. Don&#39;t get me wrong, I love this movie and have now seen it a &#39;whopping&#39; 6 times, far exceeding the number of times I have ever seen any other movie at the Cinemas. I do feel though that PJ seems for this one moment to have become enamoured of CGI. We wonders, aye we wonders why this was necessary. Surely Ms BLANCHETT&#39;s acting ability would have been sufficient to display Galadriel&#39;s transformation, perhaps with some appropriate camera work. An area of SFX where PJ demonstrates unquestionable expertise. I think that given the effort that went into the movie, the unnecessary (IMHO) use of CGI in this pivotal moment in the story, cheapens an otherwise brilliant movie. I just hope that PJ learns from the (very few) complaints about this film and continues the otherwise excellent work with TTT and ROTK. Speaking of which, does anyone know if the TTT footage that is supposed to be attached to FOTR on March 29 (ish) is going to be shown in Brisbane Australia? MorGy the &#39;good professor can&#39;t have it both ways. He can&#39;t make such a definite statement that Luthien is the only elf to have truly departed from this world, and then go on and forget that previous statement and talk about other Elves dying. He was known to make a few mistakes from time to time. He openly admitted that he&#39;wrestled&#39; with the problem of the 2 Glorfindel&#39;s for a good number of years before coming up with his definitive (sort of) answer. One other mistake I have personally seen was in the original edition of LOTR that I once saw. In the chapter dealing with Sam and Frodo&#39;s doings in Ithilien, Sam found much more than a few herbs. He found a number of vegetables growing, that were completely out of season. That was quickly fixed up to the now famous few herbs. There have been a number of other mistakes observed in the books. But hey, no-one&#39;s perfect. Cheers.

Hi Eleanor, thank you for writing such a detailed reply to my post. I will try to respond with equal attentiveness so that you have no cause to chide me for "not responding to my questions" or some other gross oversight, of which I have been guilty in the past. ******* There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have recently read the book, and those who have not. Those how have the book fresh in their minds have the benefit of rich characterizations already in their head when they see the movie. For these people, the film is merely a spectacular visualization of the well defined characters already in their head. The film acts as a visual supplement to the book, and as such serves well. However! For people who have *not* read the book recently, they need the film to "stand alone" and present full blown characters in its own right. Here the film fails. Bottom line: if the book is fresh in your mind, the film is visual gravy, but if the book is not in your mind, then the film&#39;s characters are somewhat of an anonymous grab-bag of motiveless odd-balls without rhyme nor reason. I believe this is the main difference between my perspective on the characters and your perspective, since you appear to have the book fresh in your mind, while I have not read it in, um, a quarter century I think. ******* Respites: they are needed for pacing, not for bonding. ******* Bonding: in order to bond you have to know the motive of the character. The characters seem to do all kinds of things without letting us know, on a personal level, why they were doing them. It&#39;s not clear why Frodo takes this quest so much to heart and makes it his personal quest - indeed, it seems inexplicable that he would do so, and that anyone would allow him to do so. If you ask anyone (who has not read the book), "Why did Character X go on the quest?" you will receive a blank stare for an answer. This is because we are provided with no reason why any of the characters signed up for the mission. People may concoct their own theories, "Character X joined because xyz," but everybody&#39;s theory will be different. The fact is, the film leaves a great void as to the personal motivations of the characters, and we are only left to guess as to what made each one of them sign up to Save the World. (Mind you, if you have the book swirling in your head, it is difficult for you to clear its pages from your mind and clearly see the deficiencies of the film as a standalone work.) ******* Aragorn: when I say he is the only "well defined" character, I mean that he is the only one who is given a well defined personal motive, namely, to set aright the mistake of his forefather. Aragorn wants to see the Ring destroyed in order to finish the deed that his forefather should have finished long ago. It makes perfect sense, it is clearly presented in the film, it allows us to know "where Aragorn is coming from," and this allows us to bond with him. The frequent flashbacks of Isildur pound the point home, since we are repeatedly shown the "sin of Isildur," and thus when his descendant Aragorn says he wants to set it right, we know exactly what he&#39;s talking about. The scene where Aragorn explains his motivation is when he speaks with Arwen at the shards of Narsil - a scene that was an intenvion of the script writers, and congratulations to them! Without that scene, Aragorn would be another motiveless non-entity. ******* Script: in general I think the script-writers were loathe to make up new scenes and new dialog. This is why the other characters did not have their motives well defined. The book does not contain blunt "motive explanation scenes" because the book can flesh out characters over a much longer series of incidents, and the Book&#39;s Omniscient Narrative can directly tell us what is going on inside characters heads without having to express it in actual dialog. Hence, if one searches the book for "motive dialog", you might not find it (and indeed, the script writers did not find it, and hence did not include it). The film, however, does not enjoy the luxury of Omniscient Narrative like a book can; instead a film must explain motives via dialogue. Hence it becomes necessary to create new dialogue to clearly express the characters motives. This was well executed in the case of Aragorn, with the scene at the Shards of Narsil. It was not executed for the other characters, sadly. They needed to write a line or two for everybody who joined the Fellowship, stating clearly why the heck they were joining. Legolas: "You will need an elf&#39;s eyes and ears for such a quest - and an elf&#39;s bow. I beg leave to come." Gimli: "A dwarf&#39;s ax is worth more than twenty elves&#39; bows - I will see this through!" Merry and Pippin seem to be joyriding tag-alongs. It is not clear why they don&#39;t jump ship when the first adversity strikes. If Took whines about missing his Second Breakfast, why is he walking into a War Zone? Does he stay, A) because he has come so far the road back is more perilous than the road forward? or B) because his friendship with Frodo is really so incredibly strong, or C) because he is fully consumed by the desire to Save the World? You see, we are left to guess. How can I bond with a character if I have no idea why he is doing what he does? Even with Saruman - does he join up with Sauron because he believes he will be rewarded with a post in Saurons administration, or does he have plans for some independent rule of his own (as in the book), or is he merely tired and weary and terrified out of his wits and is acting without having fully thought out the matter. Everybody was acting, but it was never clear why they were acting the way they did. Everybody did things, but it was never clear why they did them, on a personal level, as characters. ******* Galadriel: agreed, it is the cuts that made her character one-sided. PJ&#39;s original plan (it seems), was to introduce her as a somewhat spooky and intimidating character, and then have her relationship with the fellows warm up in stages. However, the stages got cut (for time&#39;s sake), so all we are left with is the intimidating introduction, the terrifying transformation, and then suddenly a warm wave farewell. The DVD will hopefully fill in the gaps and round out the more likeable side of Galadriel. My fear had been that the character of Arwen would be misrepresented, but it turns out that it was Galadriel who was misrepresented. Arwen actually came out quite nicely. ******* As for expanding Arwen, I always said it was fine to expand her character, but it had to be in the spirit of who she is, rather than creating violent scenes that are out of character for her. I hope there are scenes of her in TTT - not chopping orcs at Helm&#39;s Deep, but rather speaking intimately with Elrond and Galadriel, fleshing out the whole love/immortality dilema she is facing, which was barely touched on in the film. Again, I bet if you ask any movie goer who had not read the book, "What&#39;s up with Arwen and Aragorn," I bet they would not even be able to tell you that Arwen is a half-elf who will lose her immortality if she weds a mortal. There ya go: one sentence sums up her plight, and the film failed to clearly communicate it. I want a scene where Elrond spells it out for her, and where he shows manifest disapproval both of her intentions, and disapproval of Aragorn in particular, stating that he has not even properly assumed the throne. Indeed, this would provide even clearer motivation for Aragorn, since we would see that he wants to assume the throne so that Elrond will deem him worth and give him Arwen&#39;s hand. ******* Eleanor, my film and screenplay are proceeding nicely. My preproduction team has created four artificial limbs which will be added to your four natural limbs so you can play the eight legged Shelob. I may not have the costume finished by the time I release my second film, however, so I may have to push Shelob back into Film Three. As for script writing, I am sure that PJ does exactly the opposite of whatever I suggest just to spite my cantankerousness. I try to offer constructive criticism, and if I were a filmmaker, I would appreciate the input that one can receive from average moviegoers on the internet. ******* Maybe the missing ingredient is: the book. If you haven&#39;t read the book recently, the film is lacking something. But if you have the book fresh in your mind, then the film is a satisfying visualization.

I&#39;ve always likened Tolkien&#39;s elves to Ireland&#39;s legendary Tuatha De Danann. A mighty race of warriors and poets, they were described as "the most handsome and delightful company, the fairest of form, the most distinguished in their equipment and apparel, and their skill in music and playing, the most gifted in mind and temperament that ever came to Ireland." When the Tuatha were finally conquered, they took refuge below the hills and lakes and cloaked their kingdoms behind walls visible only to themselves and inpenetrable to most mortals. Separated by their different natures, the Tuatha and mortals occasionally crossed paths. They would take up arms together and fight against a common foe. There are even tales of romantic liasons between the two races. *** Yes, it is the warmth of Galadriel that I missed the most. When the fellowship is brought before the Lord and Lady, each person is first greeted by name and given a kind word of welcome. Galadriel even gently chides her husband when he berates Gimli, thus displaying her true grace and wisdom. The meeting ends with these words of Celeborn "You are worn with sorrow and much toil. Even if your Quest did not concern us closely, you should have refuge in this City, until you were healed and refreshed. Now you will rest, and we will not speak of your further road for a while." The reader is left in no doubt that the Galadrim are allies, however cautious they might be. I missed this in the movie and continue to hope that the dvd will clarify and enhance Galadriel&#39;s persona.

Actually ther3e is a be4lief of &#39;Jesus&#39; or Son of God in many cultures tghat would come in human form/avatars especiaLLY during the deifficult transition of ages..T^hey are alwaysb picturedn asc se4mi divine,offsprings of gods and human.There is th3e Grecian Hercules,the Jewish Enoch,the Hindu Maharishi.In ME,it would be Earendil.Half elf and man.Like Ulmo saidr he was put in ME exacvtly to reach the Valars.The enchanted seas wouilad be the equivalent o0f the 12 impossible tasks of Herc,the7 levels of relities needed for the hindu avatars to go t6hru,the 7 sins of the western churches...He finally,lijke Enoch and the Hindu8 av avatars,acghieved angelic transfiguration(like Enoch and Herc) aqnd became a shining star.Even receiviing a gi9ft of angelic wiongs from the Ladyn of the Stars.The elves B4 reaching the West wouldn&#39;t be angels(maiars).Only af5ter reaching the West would they achieved angelic tranformation...I am that I am is the name of Go9d...

Interesting point about feeling that Frodo was on a quest that he was ill-qualified for... you know, this is a confession, but I always felt he was kind of rail-roaded into it in the book. Doesn&#39;t it go with Gandalf declaiming about "small feet walking into peril" and on cue Bilbo volunteers. He gets told he&#39;s too old. And then there is this *enormous* silence, broken by a bell ringing for dinner somewhere beyond the Council Room. And then Frodo steps up to the bat with "I will take the Ring... which is clearly what all you bastards are hinting at." Well, it&#39;s just my opinion. Am enjoying the quiet debates... I&#39;ve been off AICN for a day or so recovering from Harry&#39;s Blade 2 review, but the therapy seems to be working out, and I&#39;m sure I&#39;ll be back to normal soon.

Having consulted the text, it&#39;s actually Elrond that does for the poor little blighter, with his "Small hands do as they must..." speech. Though it does prompt Bilbo to volunteer, and Gandalf talks him down. I must have been channelling Bakshi, for which I can only offer my full apologies to this forum and in addition assure everybody that I shall be putting a bullet through my brain later this evening as recompense. I still feel that it was a put-up job on poor Frodo though.

Elrond responds to Frodo that "it seems that the task is yours", or whatnot, I do not have the text in front of me, nor memorized. I am certain that Frodo was simply thrilled to have Elrond say that. I think that this is one of those moments where Frodo really is standing in for all of us who are not a member of the ruling or monied class. It is to Tolkien&#39;s credit that he gives a central character that most of his readers could actually relate to. We simply cannot enter into the world of Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. We can understand Frodo, and therefore the story becomes easier to enter into, and therefore whatever &#39;moral&#39; that Tolkien was trying to impart (directly or indirectly) would actually have a chance of sinking in. This is also why the movie works, because while some of the others may have rather showy moves and abilities, it still is Frodo that allows us to hold onto the story. In this, I would argue that Ebert was wrong, because he felt like all of the humans and elves took over the story. Frodo&#39;s &#39;humanity&#39; is still central, and therefore the picture still revolves around his choices and ideas. I am hoping that this connection between film goer and film continues through the two other films.

I\ve seeb it all right...Whats with this pre4occupation with SFX?Think of the face of Bilbo
MORPHIN&#39; into a dem0nic face?!When a purely human expression will do.Or the jarring fx when Frodo is in the wr5aith world.Tolkien ubdertood magic and is mre subtle in portraying the wraithworld.And you know my thoughts about the medieval look of the movie.Anyone read vt65he article about the magic of ME in TORN.Medievalish?Consider the Malays.The furthest Easte4rn culture I can think of.They have bards(panglipur lara) who tells epics(hiukayat).Tales about genies(fire elementals like balrog;jin)amd wraiths(hantu).Their heroes sing songs with the heroines,justr like Aragorn nand Arwen.Tjhey believed in human shaped but fair looking elves(bidadari).They believed in magical swords(krises;ome of which are made from Eol"s meteoritic galvorn).Swords that can warn the users of enemies by rattling the sheath.Much like the vME swords that mgleams when an orc i near.They believed in goblins(think orcs).They have magicians(PAWANG).Thheir version of Elvish beliefss would be the he43rmetivc sufis that believed in the one God and a patheon of angels(mazlaIKAT,LIKE THE vALAR ).Actually Excalibur is far more effective in prottraying magic than FOTR. the movie. without fancy gimmicks.The magic lies in the idea rather than visuals.Nuthin&#39; is more revealing than when the secret of the connection between the king and the land was revealed to the kni8ght,after dying the triple death.Nuthin&#39; is more chilling than the knights riding thruy the fields with the piece from carmina burana in the backgroud.Boorman has always been one of my fave directors....

re: Hildebrand. Easy mate. To understand these mystical folk, do a little de Niro style method preparation. To truly understand the world of dwarves, first get bladdered on some kind of real ale: Pendlewitch&#39;s, or Hobgoblin. Then indulge in a little dwarf bonding with your dwarf mates by breaking rocks with your head and singing old songs about gold. Perhaps you could acquire an axe from your local hardware store and hunt goblins in the subway. Trust me, after a few pints of Old Peculier, you&#39;ll find &#39;em. Finish up by running your hands through a pile of gold (chocolate if you can&#39;t get the real thing) and think mean thoughts about anyone taller than yourself (elves f&#39;rinstance). To get into the elf mindset, rack up a few bottles of Chardonnay, put some Clannad on in the background and get maudlin drunk contemplating the transience of beauty while wisdom endures. Perhaps read some Baudelaire, or Keats. You might consider taking a longbow onto a paintball site (marketing executives in camo make pretty good orcs), if you do that in England on a Sunday morn you&#39;ve got legal cover. Maybe.

Pretty good. Thanks for a good laugh this morning. As for the drinking choices of dwarves and elves, it is perhaps colored by my own preferences, but I have always thought it would be more appropriate for Dwarves to drink a good stout. As for Elves, I would guess the white burgundy, simply because they have the time and patience to let it age the proper length of time.
Any way. Morpheus, a question: Excalibur did indeed leave the magic more to the imagination, but if they were to make that film today, with the ability to add CGI, would they? I think we need to allow context into our discussion, as a movie from even ten years ago would not be able to do what is being done today. Thus it is a bit like playing with the new toy, you play with it simply because you have it and it is exciting. The ability to say, "well we could use CGI, but let us try something else" may not be in a director&#39;s thinking as of yet. Case in point, George Lucas. This is not a slam!!! Sorry, needed the clarification there. But it seems to me that the reason the original trilogy was so good is that it still had a lived-in feel to it. The Phantom Menace and the screen shots from the new movie look great, but there is such an air of artificiality that they deaden the feel of the movie. Lord of the Rings, when it moves to its most CGI parts also loses a bit of its organic feel, eg. Galadriel&#39;s freak out scene, and the moment when the fellowship is running through the halls of Moria, the long shot where it looks like Gandalf is running on a moving sidewalk. These moments are not fatal, or even completely distracting, but they are times when we know that CGI is being employed and we have a more difficult time buying what we are seeing. My hope is that when we all sit down to watch TTT we will not be taken out of the story every time we see Gollum and Treebeard. Jackson has his work cut out for him to do this, I think that it is his biggest challenge in the entire project. If we can watch these characters without thinking of what computer generated them, then he will succeed to an even greater degree than he already has.

I stand corrected. Yes, Frodo is a member of the monied class, a very good point. And yes, Sam is probably closer to a lot of us then Frodo. My central point may still be salvagable though, that the hobbits more closely resemble the standard reader then Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli, and even Boromir. These are all individuals a good deal removed from our experience.

I was going to weigh in on this debate with some orcish war poetry, or perhaps a version of Kipling&#39;s "Tommy Gamgee", but I&#39;m busy reading this: http://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/15/books/tolkien-interview.html . Thought you folks might like to check it out.

interesting to see Spaceperve mention Pendlewitch real ale, as I was born and raised in Pendle (within sight of Pendle Hill, infamous for its medieval witchcraft, or rather witch trials). I&#39;ve drunk a few Witches Brews (Moorhouses), don&#39;t know if that&#39;s the same stuff. Anyway, to sidle on topic, the hobbits&#39; beverage choices seem very indicative of class, don&#39;t they? Sam says goodbye to the beer barrel before leaving Bag End, while Frodo drains the last of the Old Winyards (did you notice in the film Saruman and Gandalf knocking back the claret? I&#39;m sure PJ would have had Saruman offering Gandalf a brandy, in a Bond-villain manner, if he thought he could get away with it). Merry, as the dissolute son of landed gentry, of course sticks to mushrooms ;-). _______ (Which brings me to) morpheus! I too am curious what you generally thought of the film, particularly how they handled magic. I seem to remember you having some strong views on how it should be displayed (which seemed to me a bit at odds with how it was actually described in the book, eg Gandalf shooting beams of light from his hand etc). Were you happy with the wizard duel? A lot of people seemed to actually want more pyrotechnics in that sequence, but I thought the FX were quite restrained, (comparatively speaking), and if the duel was to be included that was the way to do it IMO. And the set design? What did you think of Hobbiton and Rivendell? To me they were extremely close to the book, but I can imagine you having other ideas.... Anyway, good to see morpheus intersecting with the plane of reality we like to call AICN talkback, once again :-).

Aw,y&#39;know my thoughts &#39;bout hobbits and hobbitholes in general:)The light stabbinjg up from Gandal&#39;s hand is only Gandalf revealing hi9s angelic self to the nazgul.B4 that Gandalf was describedas shining.It is not the electric bolt of Star Wars&#39; emperor.And i hated the duel.What shoulda been a subtle battle of wills turned into fancy fightti9ng.And whts with the moth?

The moth grows into Mothra in Film Three. Oops - spoiler! There is a wicked fight between Mothra and Shelob and the Giant Eagle (Rodan). Sauron also comes forth from his castle giant-sized like Ultra-man to join the fray.

I mean, Holy Crap! Did anyone else? (I&#39;ve got it on confidence that that ugly prick P. Troll didn&#39;t--GOOD.) *** It&#39;s been a bitch of a week, haven&#39;t had time to come play, except for Monday/Tuesday which is when, I just discovered, Harry dropped his SW bomb all over the Internet. Explains why my box&#39;d crash every time I tried gettin here. So I&#39;m getting edgy, and overworked, and prtty much figuring I wouldn&#39;t get around to posting here until the post-Oscar insanity. I figure I&#39;ll take some work home, and use up my last hour of work exploiting the big fat T3 connection here. Got through reading most of the week&#39;s news, and this board, but knew if I got to joining in I&#39;d be here until 9 tonight. Willpower! Willpower! So I checked the ol&#39; hotmail account. And BAM. "Costa Botes" in the From box, surrounded by a week of Hotmail spam but jumping out clear as day. WHAT A GREAT GUY! Even if it&#39;s his assistant shoving out a form response (it&#39;s friendly but in no way personalized), this is the only place, lately, with a reference to that e-mail address. HOW COOL IS THAT? And yep, it came today! Check your inboxes! All right, just in case, I&#39;ll put up the e-mail in a new post. (Hope you don&#39;t mind, Mr. Botes!) This may be very, very immature of me, but... I just feel so SPECIAL! 8~D

Hi there, *** The "work in progress" shown at Oklahoma was 72 minutes. Some material will be removed, other stuff will go in. The final running time will be about 90 minutes. That&#39;s just film one. *** Hopefully, this might then be approved as a stand alone doco. Yet to be detirmined, but the plan right now is to cut two more such pieces, one for each of the other two movies. *** On top of this, Peter has said from the start that he wants to put out a detailed, "warts and all" feature length doco about the trilogy - a "Hearts of Darkness" style work. Thankfully, the making of LOTR wasn&#39;t as fraught with horror and despair as Copolla&#39;s epic, but we can certainly deliver a fascinating and insightful feature, with a personal point of view. Maybe this will end up being the definitive LOTR doco? Hope so. *** But wait, there&#39;s more. Yes, we are assembling clips covering the gamut of all three films, detailed stories about life, the universe, and everything to do with the making of LOTR, total running length will be about 15-18 hours. The plan for now is that these become part of a detailed historical record, and of course, we&#39;re using this material as a resource for the shorter documentaries. However, if fate is kind, and all concerned are willing, it would be a great thing if this stuff were eventually made available to fans on DVD. The non-linear, &#39;see it a bit at a time&#39; approach would definitely suit the content, but even if one watches hours at a time, all I can say is, it ain&#39;t boring. *** Don&#39;t hold your breath, though. Whatever happens, it won&#39;t be soon. *** Okay? *** Best wishes, *** COSTA BOTES ....... [PB sez, Okay, how about THIS new conspiracy theory? Instead of BG = PJ... BG = CB all along...? ;~) ]

That is very cool. Wow. Just hours and hours and hours of stuff... there hasn&#39;t been a new TB for a few days and I am already in deep withdrawal. Which reminds me - I was thinking about this today. Do you think the footage from TTT is finished yet? Do you think anyone&#39;s seen it? Sigh. I get so... impatient.

You can just call me Costa if you like ;-) Hmmm... well it&#39;s a nice idea, but unfortunately I&#39;m not Costa Botes. If I had access to all that behind the scenes info I would, of course, share it all with my fellow Tailenders. Alas, the information well is dry. I watched an interview with Richard Taylor and Philippa Boyens, on TV last night. The only thing of interest that came up was that Philippa hinted that PJ would be wearing something unusual to the Oscars. Hmmm... a Tux with tailored shorts perhaps?

Dear elanor eight-legs, thank you for your detailed posts. You are correct that I am a slow witted dullard who likes/needs to have things spelled out very blatantly in order to penetrate my thick skull. In this regard, I believe I represent the average distracted popcorn munching movie-goer. Moreover, it is wise to convey the important messages in a film *two times* in the course of the movie, since somebody may be out at the bathroom for one time. Thus, good filmmakers will beat the audience over the head with the important points twice. I commend PJ for his masterful employment of this technique in regard to Isildur. Moreover, any scene that has the colors leached out is OK by me. ******* "The film is a failure." I never said it was a failure in general; I said it was a failure in the very specific regard of conveying the motivations of the characters. The film is clearly a triumph in many regards, particularly as an epic visualization, and being generally entertaining. ******* "Who is buying all the tickets?" It is a well known fact that half of all tickets have been purchased by crazed New Zealanders, and the other half have been bought for New Zealand sheep by their keepers, in a successful attempt to inflate the box office. There were a handful of tickets sold in the States, but these were discovered to be mostly New Zealanders on holiday, plus a couple tailenders. There is also a fanatical fellow in Austin who has been attending every showing at every theater in town since the film first opened, but that&#39;s about it. ******* "Tell me more about that cute girl at the bar." Well, it wasn&#39;t at a bar, and I don&#39;t think I mentioned she was cute, but when I see her in two weeks I&#39;ll be sure to follow the suggestion to throw her into the trunk and drag her bound and gagged to the nearest theater. ****** "I want to see your script." Since early reviewers have found my script writing to be unendurably lame, I have decided to take your advice and make a Silent movie where everything will be conveyed by grimaces and gesticulations. At one point I will require Shelob to roll her fifty eyes. Are you up to this? ******* "Why don&#39;t you (re)read the book?" I am one of those people who, if I had the book fresh in my mind, would be driven crazy by the discrepancies, and by the clash of my own visualization with that of the films. I have purposely not read the book in 25 years in order to make room in my head for this film (a little birdie whispered in my ear 25 years ago that PJ was releasing a film in 2001). After ROTK I will be free to read the books again, at which point I will cite chapter and verse where it says hobbits have hairy soles. Until then, I will not cede the point!! Moreover, if I had the books fresh in mind, I would no longer enjoy the liberty of twisting their vague memory in my mind to suit my own fancy. ******* Boromir: (I just have to post about this!). At the time of the Fellowship, the greatest military power is arguably Gondor. The Steward of Gondor is without question the most powerful Man in MiddleEarth (note: Man, not counting elves/dwarves). The Steward of Gondor is loosely analogous to the President of the United States, as the leader of the military bastion of the Free World. His son (Boromir), as an heir to that position, would be one of the most highly respected Men in MiddleEarth in virtue of his (future) position. Bear in mind that the Stewardship of Gondor is Real, whereas the rumors of a king in exile is like some hippie fairytale about some unproven scruffy ruffian who has some supposed right to the throne. Even Elrond does not respect Aragorn, precisely because his Kingship is merely an unrealized dream. This dream of possible Kingship pales in comparison to the very Real and Effective office of the Stewards. It is like someone today who claims he is descended directly from the last Caesar trying to stand shoulder to shoulder with the actual European Heads of State. People would respect the actual power of the Heads of State far more than they would respect any claims of alleged birthright. Now, getting back to Boromir, my point is that Boromir should have been portrayed as a much more respected personage in view of his (future) office, rather than as the apparent barbarian outcast he seems to be in the film. Indeed, in the Fellowship, he by far outranks everybody except perhaps Gandalf. Imagine a fellowship consisting of GW Bush, Albert Einstein, a bunch of children, a short guy, a sharpshooter with pointy ears, and a hippie who claims he is descended from Caesar. Who would lead the fellowship? Who would receive respect? This is basically the dynamic of the Fellowship. I humbly submit that the tremendous stature of Boromir was not conveyed at all. As far as societal stature goes, he was the GW Bush of the Fellowship. Everybody else was just a peon (hobbits), a layman (Legolas, Gimli), a renowned eccentric genius (Albert Gandalf), or a crackpot (Caesar wannabe Aragorn). Boromir could afford to act with that brash self-confidence and self-conceit that so often manifests itself in the rich and famous and powerful of this world. Although Bean did a moving portrayal of Boromir, I think he portrayed Boromir too much like Bean&#39;s typical villain characters: an evil outsider. Bean should have conveyed more of the Respectability, and Self Confidence of Boromir. The "I am the future Steward of Gondor and the rest of you are inconsequential" air of Boromir. When news of Boromir&#39;s death reached round MiddleEarth, it would shake everyone, like the assassination of ArchDuke Ferdinand, or the assassination of Kennedy. Meanwhile the death of anybody else in the fellowship would not even make the last page in the MiddleEarth Times. Legolas who? "An elf was killed today near the Anduin River..." It&#39;s not even newsworthy. Gandalf is the one newsworthy exception, but Aragorn is clearly on the "unknown" list. "A man claiming to be the direct descendant of Caesar was killed today..." Compare that with "Heir of Gondor, Boromir slain by orcs!" It would be on the front page for months. It&#39;s the kind of incident that sets off a War on Orcs. It would raise cries of "Sauron has gone too far this time!" It would be a Sept 11th kind of incident, obliging Gondor to sally forth in retribution. It&#39;s an ArchDuke Ferdinand kind of event. Now that Boromir is dead, Faramir is Next in Line to the Stewardship. Perhaps TTT will convey a bit of the stature of this heirship of Faramir.

The Academy likes to reward a cumulative body of work. Everyone knows that lotr will consist in three films. Everyone also knows that PJ has accomplished a truly herculean feat in bringing the films to the screen. This will not go unrewarded! However, the Academy would prefer to bestow the honors of "Best Director" when the third film is released (because they like to reward a body of work, rather than a single film). ******* Let&#39;s face it, people like Randy Newmann and Ron Howard won Oscars this year based on their lifetime achievement. For the Academy, it&#39;s not so important to reward a particular work, as it is to reward a body of work. They may give PJ the Oscar for the Third Film even if it is the weakest of the three films, simply because they want to recognize his accomplishment as a whole in bringing the lotr to the screen. The fact that Fellowship received 13 nominations shows that the quality of the work is clearly being recognized. If the next two films maintain this consistency of high quality, then an Oscar is certainly coming PJ&#39;s way. ******* The Academy also loves dramas and deep psychological characterization. As I have been ranting, if there is a weak link in Fellowhip, it is the somewhat shallow psychological characterization of the folk. We never get a sense of what is going on in the characters&#39; minds (at least I don&#39;t, though it may be just because I am a dullard. Then again, perhaps many of the Academy members are dullards too, and they failed to see the fabulous nuances that sharp folk like elanor pick up so easily). If TTT and RotK give us a greater sense of what&#39;s going on inside the characters minds, and why they act the way they do, then this will help steer lotr onto the Oscar track, as opposed to merely being an immensely popular visual sensation, like the Star Wars series, which always lands outside of the Academy&#39;s award zone. So, I guess what it boils down to is that if you give us Dufusyte&#39;s "Motivated Characters," then you&#39;ll get an Oscar. :)

Sean Bean&#39;s Boromir is actually heavily based on his portrayal of Richard Sharpe in a series of TV movies set during the Napoleonic wars, where he played the swashbuckling laydeez man rough-diamond imperfect hero to perfection, and I think that&#39;s why he got the part in the first place. American audiences are probably only aware of him playing the villain, but he&#39;s capable of a lot more. His background is mostly in historical/adventure/romance.